Revelations:  Part Three

"The world has turned and left me here,
Just where I was before you appeared.
And in your place, an empty space,
Has filled the void behind my face."

***

            "Shut me up if I'm being rude 'ere, but everything ye've told me so far had been great.  I don't understand how it is that ye came to hate Jack so much", Ana changed the subject.

            A sigh.  "I was hopin maybe ye'd just forget about all that", Sophia smirked.

            "Not quite."

            "Right then.  Well, let's see.  The first year was heaven, even with bein in Tortuga.  Then, it started to go downhill from there."

            "I have to talk to ye about somethin Soph."  Jack's tone was serious, an unusual occurrence, and Sophia knew something important was on his mind. 

            Patting the empty seat on the couch next to her, she waited for him to come sit down.  He took her hands in his, affirming her suspicions.

            "We've got a decent amount money.  With me workin down at the docks and you workin for Tim."

            "Umm hmm", she agreed.

            "Thing is, I've been going over how much we make and spend, and the way it looks, we aren't gettin out o' Tortuga anytime soon."

            Sophia looked at him confused, where was this going.

            "Anyway, I know yer dream always was to move away and I think I've come up with a way to make it happen."

            "How's that?"

            "Well, one o' the captains I've been runnin errands for offered me a place with his crew.  If I could just join for a little while, I could make enough money that we'd be set for life."

            "What?  Ye want to join a pirate ship?"

            "Just for a while.  Coupla months, maybe a year", he answered.

            "No, no Jack.  I'd rather we lived 'ere forever than you runnin off becoming a pirate."

            "Look I'm not joinin for life or anythin like that.  Just til we have enough money then I'll leave.  Really it won't be…"

            "What ship", she cut him off.

            "What?"

            "What ship?"

            "The Black Pearl", he answered, unsure of why it mattered.

            "I don't know Jack.  I mean, everythings going so good, why d'ye want to go and complicate things now?"

            "Because, things could be betta.  A hundred times betta.  Don't ye want that?"

            "I guess."

            "Then let me do this.  Let me do this so we can have a betta life.  So our children can have a betta life."

            At his last comment she stopped suddenly and looked at him.  Their children?  She couldn't believe her ears.  Had he really just said that?  A million things crowded her mind.  He did have a point, but still, did she really want him out facing death on a pirate ship.

            "Alright", she agreed at last, albeit rather reluctantly.

            And at the moment, their fate was sealed.  Only two days later Jack said his goodbyes and headed down to the Black Pearl.  He assured her everything would work out just fine.  The ship stopped in Tortuga almost monthly, if not every other month.  He paid their rent several months in advance so she wouldn't have to worry about it and went on his way. 

            At first, things didn't seem so bad.  Sure Sophia was lonely.  It was the first time in her life that she didn't have him there.  But like he had said, visits were frequent and the rewards were many.  Upon his return home when the ship docked for a time in the harbor, Jack brought with him treasures and beautiful accessories.  She was well provided for.  The drab furniture in their house that he had first bought was soon replaced by beautifully carved pieces fit for royalty.  Foreign tapestries were hung and gorgeous quilts, fine china, and lavish fixtures filled the rooms of the apartment. 

            It seemed everything was going to play out exactly how Jack had predicted.  But soon that all came to an end.  As time went by, visits became more spaced out, several months now passing in between dockings.  Their bills were still being paid but and Sophia was never at a loss for what she needed.  But when it came to what she wanted, she most certainly was.  She wanted Jack, and she'd have traded everything he'd gotten for them to have him, even if it meant living in the streets. 

            "How much longer", she pleaded with him when she finally did see him.

            "Only a little.  I promise.  Just a bit longer to get everything we need together", he would answer, stroking her face reassuringly.

            "What else could we possibly need Jack?"

            "Just a bit longer luv.  Then we'll move away from 'ere and start a new life."

            And she had to be content with that answer.  But a bit longer always turned into a lot longer.  Visits were infrequent, and she hardly saw him at all.  Three years had passed since he had taken up this new occupation and she was tired of waiting.  She resolved to make him quit next time he was in port.  When the day finally came however, her efforts were not successful.

            "Jack I'm tired o' this", she stated firmly as he wrapped his arms around her in a hello.

            She pushed him away.  "I'm serious.  It's been three years, how much more can you possibly hope to gain.  I want us to be together again.  I was happier being poor and with you then having money and alone."

            And he had answered with the same old arguments.  He'd only go out one more time and that would be it.  He just needed one more trip and then he'd be settled and they could move on.  She had agreed, why she did not know, but it was obvious that she could not deny him something he so obviously had grown to love.  The rest of their visit passed in peace, and she had kissed him goodbye on the final day he was home, somewhat at peace it would be the last time she had to do it.

            "No worries luv", he had assured her.  "I'll be back before ye know it."

            But he wasn't.  And not three weeks after the Black Pearl had sailed off into the horizon Sophia discovered she was pregnant.    

            It was a hard pregnancy, and being alone didn't help much.  But Sophia did not worry, Jack's mother was there to help and she had full faith and confidence that he would return home before the baby was born.  She was wrong.  Nine months passed, nine horrible, sick, lonely months, and still no Jack.  She made excuses, convincing herself he'd be there soon enough.  He didn't come. 

            When it was time for the baby to be born she was still alone save for his mother.  The birth was an absolute horror.  For one reason or another their child did not want to enter this world.       

            "Doesn't want to come out til his daddy's here", Jack mother repeated again and again, until Sophia finally yelled at her to stop.

            When Jackson Allen Sparrow II finally did make his entrance into the world, he nearly killed his mother.  Sophia lay unconscious for days, fighting fever and extreme blood loss, while nightmares and delusions terrorized her sleep.  When she awoke, and her son was finally settled in his mother's arms, Sophia finally had to accept that Jack was not coming back.  She remained in Tortuga for another seven months, until she felt her boy was big enough to handle travel, then packed her bags, said her goodbyes, and hopped a ship out of Tortuga.  She left the apartment as it was, and told the landlord he could rent it out fully furnished to the next person who came along.

            Why she left she never really knew.  It would have made a lot more sense to stay there, in their nice home, and keep working at the tattoo parlor.  But something inside her rebelled against the idea of living off of anything that had been given to her by the person who had abandoned her when she needed him most.  As far as she was concerned, Jack was dead, if not literally then at least to her, and she wanted nothing to do with him ever again. 

            She and little Jack ended up in Port Arbor.  A fairly nice town where she could provide them with a living without too much difficulty.  She got a job as a bartender, and rented one of the rooms in the inn above it.  It was purely luck that the job worked out, for whatever reason the tavern's owner had been kind enough to spare her the profession that befell so many other women who worked for him, though she wouldn't have accepted that job even if he had offered.  Two years went by and Sophia had started to rebuild her life, despite not being the life she had always planned on. 

            Eventually the bar owner passed away, nothing special, just old age.  The tavern's ownership changed hands to his son.  If one thing was for sure, it was that the kindliness of the father must have skipped a generation, because the son was a ruthless and merciless as they came.  The idea of a woman behind the bar was not alright by him, and he told Sophia she either turned whore or she was done.  She opted for the second choice.  The same night, she arranged passage aboard a merchant ship headed for Bay Harbor, and just for fun, set a fire in her room burning the entire establishment to the ground.  By the time the new owner caught wind of her responsibility she was long gone. 

            "Where's my daddy", Jackie had asked his mother on the ride to Bay Harbor.  "Do you know who he is mummie?"

            She looked at her son in horror.  "Why wouldn't I darling?"

            "Lots of other kid's mum's don't know who their daddies are."

            Picking him up, she placed the little boy in her lap and looked him right in the eye.  "Well, you are not lots o' other kids, and I am not their mummie.  I know who yer daddy is sweetie."

            "Then where is he?  Why doesn't he come to see me?  Doesn't he love me mummie?"

            Her heart broke at his questions, and she could not bear to tell someone so young and innocent that his father probably didn't even know he was alive.  "Yer daddy died luv.  Just before you was born."  It was lie, well maybe, she wasn't really sure if he was dead or not.

            "Really". he asked disbelieving.

            She nodded and pulled him tight to her. 

            They set up again in Bay Harbor, but this time life was not so understanding.  There were no taverns looking for female bartenders, not tattoos parlors either.  In the end it was either prostitution or destitution, the beginning of the thieving years.  It was a miserable existence.  They lived in a pathetic, run down little shack that had been abandoned long ago.  Thankfully, years growing up in Tortuga had trained her well and she was fairly successful at pick-pocketing.  But then something happened that she hadn't reckoned on.  Apparently, the tavern owner whose place she had burned had tracked her travels.  When she was out that day looking for someone to rip off, he came to the place she shared with her son and shot him twice in the chest.  She returned later to find a note explaining the situation to her, it was revenge pure and simple. 

            She cried long into the night, clutching her son's dead body to her.  He had been her world, all that she had left of a life lived long before.  From then on there would only be one person Sophia Barrister ever relied on, herself.  And for the next 10 years that was how she lived.  She shed her old self, transforming into a figure to be reckoned with.  No one was going to take advantage of her, and anyone who tried would surely pay.  So it was that she thieved, pirated, and in general wreaked havoc wherever she went.  By the time she finally ended up in the Port Antenea auction, there was hardly a sole in the Caribbean who hadn't heard of her at one point or another.  And she was damned proud of that.

"Which just about brings us up to date", she finished for Anamaria.  "With a few minor details left out o' course." 

            Ana just sat there gaping. 

            "What?  Ye look like ye've seen a ghost or something.  It's really not all that of a story."

            "Yes, yes it is", Ana corrected.  You mean to tell me, that not only were you Jack's first bed partner, but his first love who he was plannin on marrying."

            "Sounds about right."

            "No, now way.  There's just no way."

            "Look, you asked.  There's really no reason for me to lie about it", Sophia shot back, growing defensive.

            "Yer right.  I'm sorry.  It's just that, well, the person ye described, that's not the Jack I know at all."

            "Yeah well, I suppose people change right?"

            "You swear to me everything ye just said is true", Ana said instead of answering.

            "I swear on pain of death", Sophia raised her right hand.

            "Damn!  So now what?"

            "What d'ye mean?"

            "I don't know.  Yer hear now.  Ye can't go on ignoring him forever can ye?"

            "Don't see why not."

            "I think ye should talk to him", Ana suggested.

            "Umm, no.  I've done just well for myself without him all these years, no sense in complicating things all over again by gettin attached now.  Besides, there's nothing he could really say that would make up for everything, so why bother?"

            To that Ana had no answer.  With a sigh she gave Sophia a light kiss on her forehead.  "Get some sleep luv.  Ye've had a rough day."

            She was right, Sophia was exhausted.  She watched as the other woman put out her candle then rolled over to face the wall and let the darkness consume her.  For her part, Ana had absolutely no intentions of going to sleep just yet.  She waited until Sophia's soft snores filled the room, the threw on a jacket and headed straight for Jack's cabin.